District to announce deal to build D.C. United stadium

Mayor Vincent Gray will announce Thursday a deal to build a new D.C. United stadium at Buzzard Point in Southwest Washington, sources familiar with that decision said Wednesday.

While the particulars of the deal are still to be worked out, I’m told the District and Akridge, owner of nine Buzzard Point acres, have reached a broad consensus on a land swap involving one or more of three District-owned buildings — the Reeves Center at 14th and U streets NW, Judiciary Square at 441 Fourth St. NW and the Daly Building (police headquarters) at 300 Indiana Ave. NW.

D.C. also continues its discussions with Pepco, another Buzzard Point landowner, though City Administrator Allen Lew told me months ago that the District will go around the utility if need be.

The deal on the table has long been that D.C. provides the land and infrastructure while the team, under relatively new ownership, builds the 20,000-seat stadium. That is still the case, sources say.

Whether or not the final terms result in the construction of a new public safety headquarters, as I had previously reported was a possibility, is still to be seen. But the fact that D.C. United is ever closer to a permanent, new home in the District, after fits and starts (remember Poplar Point?) and a decade plus at RFK Stadium, is worth celebrating for the team’s many fans.

The announcement is planned for 11 a.m., though Gray’s office has not released a location. Gray is slated to be joined by Lew, who ran the United talks for D.C., Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development Victor Hoskins and “partner organizations.”

Update: The Washington Post got a preview of the D.C. United deal, which appears to be very much like the arrangement the Washington Business Journal reported in late April.